Ned's best feelings, and so Frederick thought, for he replied, "Well,
though I am grateful to poor Collins, and also to Scannel, I am very
sorry that they have been beforehand with me; I thought to have had the
pleasure of telling you myself." "Never mind," answered Ned, "they,
poor fellows, have not so many pleasures as you have, don't _begrudge_
them _that_, for they had a sore _trot_ of it bare legged over the
stones to bring me the news; and by the same token I had nothing but
two or three potatoes that were cold in the dish after my supper to
give Jack after his long tramp over the mountain, and he was afraid of
being late for work in the morning, so would not wait till I could get
him a drop of milk."
Here was a journey of at least eight miles, by the shortest route,
across the bay, performed at the end of hard day's work without the
refreshment of food or sleep, and without the expectation of a single
sixpence to reward the toil! La Bruyere, Rochefaucauld, and all the
host of the Machiavelian school to boot, could hardly _concoct_ a
bad motive out of the given materials, with all the maceration and
trituration which they could put this action through in their moral
crucible, which can contrive to disfigure so much of human nature. The
_worst_ incentive to such a deed which ingenuity could extract from
its analysis, might perhaps be discovered in that love of stimulus
common to all lively people, and of which the Irish are peculiarly
susceptible: they love to surprise, and be surprised; but I feel
certain that Tom Collins would have performed the part of _Speaking
Trumpet_ to "Ned of the Hill," without the aid of this excitement. I
am becoming enthusiastic about these Hibernians: but to return to our
mountain sage. He received us with native courtesy: his small deal
table was quickly spread with the sandwiches which we had brought,
to which Ned added a pot of fine smoking potatoes, and a red-herring
or two which he took from a stick on which they were hanging in
the chimney. Brandy and water (the latter from a stream clear as
chrystal that babbled by his door) finished our repast; and, whether
from the effect of novelty, my long ride, the purity of the mountain
air, or all united, I cannot tell, but I never remember to have
thought the best dinner in London half so good as this upon the top
of an almost trackless waste, from which we could see nothing but a
boundless expanse of ocean lying to the west. When we had finished our
luncheon, or whatever you please to call it, Ned invited us to come
and sit by the stream in which he said that we should find the finest
water-cresses that ever were seen; and "Gentlemen," said he, "I will
get you an oaten cake, and new laid eggs, and plenty of milk, before
you quit me."
In the first part of his invitation we acquiesced, but told him that
my aunt would be uneasy if we were not at home early, and would wait
dinner. "Go, then," said Ned, "and my blessing go with you; for I
would not have her suffer the smallest fretting or vexation for all
the pleasure of your company during a whole week. She is a good mother,
and a good Christian; and deserves all the love and duty that you can
shew her."
We then walked with poor Ned, and I begged of Frederick to draw him
out in conversation, that I might hear some of his opinions. When we
were about a quarter of a mile from his _fortress_, Ned invited us to
sit down in a sunny nook, formed by the rock, where the stream widened
into a large surface, and here we found the cresses with which our host
had promised to crown our simple repast. "I often," said he, "bring a
handful of potatoes here, with a grain of salt, and gather a few of
these to make out my dinner. It is a fine thing, sir, to think how
easily a man may live, and that too upon food better for him than a
lord mayor's banquet."
"You are very happy, Ned, I should think," said Bentley, who looked at
him with the most profound admiration.--"No one is happy," answered
the hermit; "but I believe that I am as much so as anybody, for I am
contented with the lot in which Providence has placed me, and would
not desire to exchange it. Man is a poor creature, his life is but a
vapour, and the less that he is in the way of temptation the better is
it for him in time and in eternity."
"Ned," said Frederick, "you have leisure for meditation, and wish that
you would tell me what you think of public affairs at present?"
"Why, sir, I should be considered a bad judge of what the public are
about, I who live in the desert; but as every man has his own way of
thinking, I have mine."
"This is," said I, "a time of great _stir_, and a great deal is _doing_
that ought to tell either one way or the other for much good or evil."
"Ned smiled, and answered, "Sir, _you_ might set up for an oracle, for
you are _sure_ to be right, as your prophecy will answer either way:
and that is the method that a great many take to get _over_ a knotty
point, when they do not know how to get _through_ it. No offence, sir,
I hope."
I really felt a little disconcerted, and my companions laughed; but I
begged Ned to explain what he thought himself of king's ministers, men,
and nations.
"Why, sir, indeed we all flatter ourselves, even such a poor humble
being as I am, that we can see all the working of the puppets, little
and big, but people are often mistaken who have better means of coming
at the truth than I have: all the way, sir, that I have to know what
is doing in the world is by the newspapers, which my young master
there (looking at Frederick) kindly brings me, and my notion is, from
spelling and putting together, that though I may never live to see the
day when such a matter will come to pass, a revolution is hanging over
these countries as sure as you are sitting there opposite to me."
"That would be a strange event, Ned," said I, "as the consequences of
those changes to which I alluded, I meant the change from darkness to
light, from ignorance to knowledge."
"Sir, I mean the same thing, though I do not give such good names to
what I think undeserving of them."
"Why, Ned," "said Bentley, "I know a place within three miles of this
spot where you go three or four times a-week to teach: how does your
conduct consist with what you have said?"--"It fits like a pea in the
pod, sir," replied Ned; "I go to give what instruction I can to a few
poor things who are longing to know God through His word; and as some
are too young, and others too weak to climb this rugged height, I go to
the foot of the mountain to meet them; and don't you think that I would
teach every man, woman, and child, if I could make them learn the road
to heaven?" I told him that Nature herself seemed to point a finger to
the course of education in Ireland, for that such surprising faculties
as I found in the poor sons and daughters of Erin could never have been
designed by their Creator to lie dormant. "Young man, we know," replied
Ned, "nothing of God's designs, and your reason for teaching right hand
and left, is about as just as if you were to burn a hay-rick in your
neighbour's farm, and when you were asked why you did such mischief,
you were to answer, that a heap of combustibles was lying convenient,
and that as combustibles were by nature made to be burned, you thought
proper to set them on fire. But, sir, my notion is, that the gentry
are, as fast as they can, changing sides with the mob of the country,
for they are winding off at the upper end of the spindle as much as
they are winding on at the bottom, and so it will be only one thing in
the place of another after all. Education seems to be declining amongst
the _heads_ of the community, as much as it is flourishing amongst the
_tails_, and, before long, it will be found that the tails will take
the post where the heads are now."
"Upon what grounds do you prognosticate this up-side-down, this new
order, or disorder, of things?" said Bentley.--"Why, sir, upon two
grounds: first, upon the ground of my natural reason, which tells me
that it cannot be otherwise; and, secondly, upon the ground of the
newspapers, which shew me that the matter is already coming to pass
under our own eyes. Without any help to my own thoughts, I should be
a fool outright if I did not know that education is bringing out all
the faculties that were rolled up like those daisies there, before you,
in their winter-quarters, till the sun warmed the mountain, and untied
the cords that bound every button of them tight and hard in their green
cases. Now, sir, God is no respecter of persons: His providence has
given understanding to the poor as well as to the rich, which only
wants what it is now receiving to bring it into full bloom, and if
the rich, who are the smaller number, neglect the instruction which
the poor, who are the greater number, are eagerly devouring, you will
find how it will be by-and-by: the lean kine will swallow up the fat;
and when men find out that their hungry wits, sharpened by want, have
gained the power belonging to knowledge, they will use it, and not rest
contentedly upon a wild heath like this, without asking themselves the
question, "Why should not we take those places that are held by men who
do not know how to fill them, and benefit ourselves and the country by
shoving out a set of pampered geese, and coming down upon their snug
nests with all the force, as I may say, of those eagles yonder?' Sir,
when things are ripe for this question, the end is at hand."
"But, my good Ned, why suppose this neglect in the higher classes? What
should lead you to conclude that, though the blessings of light and
knowledge are spreading over the mass of mankind, the upper ranks are
not holding their own, and cultivating as before, the benefits, which,
with increased liberality, they are now determined to share?"
"Why, sir, I know very well that 'as the twig is bent the tree's
inclined,' and if I look to your great schools, and your colleges, what
do I see but an undisciplined rabble, doing what they please, and the
masters, who ought to control youthful vice and folly, become like so
many ciphers. At one of your great seminaries I see murder committed
in a boxing-match, and the whole affair hushed up, as if no harm were
done. At another of your great schools, the man to whose care the
morals of your English youth are intrusted, runs away without saying a
word to any one, leaving a debt of £50,000 behind him.
"Did I not hear young Master Fitzallan tell his father the other day
that after being at a third of your great English establishments he
had never spoken but twice to the head Master of it? Don't I read
of Oxford and Cambridge time after time expelling the young lords
and high gentlemen, for every sort of misconduct and disorder? What
do _they_ learn at the University, but to gamble away their money,
and drink French wines? Sir, my notion is, that the times are out of
joint. Children don't respect their parents and rulers. Parents and
rulers suffer children to get the upper hand, and think themselves
before their time, and without taking the _trouble_ to gain wisdom. The
wholesome restraint of the old school is out of fashion; bit and bridle
are taken off, and all the world scamper in the way they like best;
while, to crown all the folly, the grandees are whetting knives to cut
their own throats.
"Suppose now, sir, that there was in all England, or any other
country, but one single regiment of men who had arms and ammunition;
and that it was the business of this single regiment to protect the
king, and stand sentry over your banks, and prevent all commotions
in your capital. If neither gun nor pistol, a dust of powder, nor a
grain of shot could get into any other hands, would not that regiment,
of only perhaps a thousand strong, be able to keep down a multitude
that we could hardly reckon? but if the tower is opened, and a hundred
thousand stand of arms taken out, and given to the people with plenty
of balls and cartridges, and they are drilled from morning till night,
learning all the new modes of squaring and filing off, the new _this_
and the new _that_, while the old regiment does nothing at all, but
stand as if it was cut of paste-board, at the palace gates, and the
gates of your city; where will the rulers be then? Why, to be sure, in
the young and vigorous recruits, who only wanted what you have put into
their hands to knock your train-bands upon their faces on the ground,
like the poppy heads that some ancient warrior cut down for a sign to
let the enemy know what he intended to do."
"But Ned have we not some long heads in Parliament that will keep watch
over our interests?"
"Yes, sir, you have a few _long_, and a great many _short_ ones. Lord
Liverpool is an honest man and a sensible man. Mr. Peel is a man that I
believe would not tell a lie to make himself a duke; and the greatest
fault I see in him, is that he is so fond of sporting, and so afraid
that any of poor Dick Martin's feeling for the suffering dumb creation,
should interfere with his diversion, that he stifles the voice of
humanity within his breast; but it will not be so always, I hope, for
the best courage is ever to be found in a tender heart. The lion and
the lamb, sir, make a fine mixture in a man's character."
"Then you think cruelty to animals a sin, Ned?"
"Think it a sin!" replied Ned, with an expression of countenance that
would had have brought thunders of applause at Drury-lane; "Yes, sir,
it is a crying sin, and one of the very worst signs of our time. It is
a foul blot upon our scutcheon. When I was a younker, the gentlemen
did not set their poor neighbours such examples as they do now, and
we see the fruits. What right has a man, who is returning home from a
bull-bait himself, though he rides a fine horse, and has ten thousand a
year, to talk to an ignorant savage that he sees on the high road for
goading a jaded bullock to market, or belabouring an overloaded ass up
the hill? or what right has any man who encourages the wicked amusement
of prize fighting, which teaches people to become brutes, and mangle
each other in cold blood, to abuse others for doing the same in hot
blood, when they meet at a fair, and meet too as enemies who think that
they are _bound_ to revenge some real or imagined wrong? No, no, sir,
preachers must be _doers_, or they will only be laughed at."
"Whom else do you think well of in our great National Assembly, Ned?"
asked Bentley.
"Sir, I like Mr. Robinson. He knows his business. He found things in a
bad condition, and it is more troublesome to mend than to make. He is
going the right way to work, and he is not frightened by opposition.
Mr. Huskisson too, sir, is a sensible man, and knows what he is about."
"What say you, Ned, to Mr. Canning?"
"Why, sir, I think that at all events he can _talk_ well, and I love
him better for one thing that he said the other day, than if he had
given me a hundred pounds in hand. Do you remember, sir, when he defied
the house to shew him any act of liberality, any treaty upon a broad
generous foundation, that was not proposed by the Tories. That was
nuts and apples, to my heart, for it was _truth_, and very well they
all knew it, for not a man dared to contradict him; even Mr. Hume, who
contradicts every thing and every body, let _him_ alone when he threw
that challenge in their teeth."
"You do not then like Mr. Hume, Ned.?"
"I should like him better, sir, if he took the trouble of being better
informed. He, sir, is the watch dog in the orchard, but he barks so
often when no harm is at hand, or when he mistakes a crow for a band of
robbers, that when the thieves come in earnest, people do not mind him,
and the uproar that he makes then, passes by unheeded, which is a pity.
However, sir, he does some good, though not so much as he might do, and
the fear of _giving tongue_ keeps many a pilferrer out of the apple
trees."
"Well, Ned, will it not be a fine thing for Ireland, if we live to see
the day when emancipation is proclaimed, and all animosity, discontent,
and rebellion, are laid in the dust?"
Ned laughed heartily. "Wait a while," said he, "and if we live to see
that day I am a pickled herring. No, sir, 'tis not because I am no
longer a _Roman_ myself that I say it, but the never a bit of good
would emancipation do in this country. The _name_ of it indeed, would
make the people light fires, and drink a double dose of whiskey, when
they heard of it; and they would shout, and those that have hats would
throw them up into the air. You would have more noise, and drunkenness,
and bloodshed, and battery for a week or so, and when that was over,
and not a rap was to be found in their pockets, or a tatter left on
their backs, they would begin to look about them, and ask one another,
what they had got? Whether the potato-garden was lowered in its rent,
or leather in its price? Whether wages were raised or the necessaries
of life cheaper than they were before; and when they discovered that
all the difference in their condition was, that Daniel O'Connell and
his partner Shiel, might stun the House of Commons in London, with
their blustering speeches as they do now the Catholic Association in
Dublin; the people would find that they had gained nothing but broken
heads."
"But though it were only a shadow, a mere name," said I, "if the
people's hearts are set upon obtaining it, will they not be happier and
more tranquil, if they succeed in the object of their wishes?"
"Why, sir, as to _wishes_, you may set an ignorant multitude wishing
for anything you please. You might make them wish, like an infant, for
the moon, though they know no more about it, than that it looks like
a fine big Gloucester cheese; but if the moon dropped down to them,
and they discovered that they could not neither eat, drink, nor wear
it; that it would neither relieve them from tithe, nor cess, pay their
rent, nor manure the ground; nor, in fact do anything but set a few
learned men in the college talking about the length and the breadth
of it; I would not go security for their being satisfied with ther
bargain. Sir, when people are set on wishing, without knowing what they
are wishing for, it is well for them if it ends as well as the fable,
in a yard of good black pudding."
We were excessively amused by Ned's dry sarcastic manner. Bentley
continued: "I think, however," said he, "that let Parliament decide
as it may, the bonds of affection between landlord and tenant will
be drawn closer by the discussions that have taken place. The poor
will love the rich better from finding the sympathy so general in
their suffering, whether the wrongs of which they complain be real or
imaginary."
"Not at all, sir," answered Ned, with energy, "the people are poor
and wretched; they have many wants and many grievances to complain
of, but _those_, which their landlords might relieve or redress are
never thought about, unless now and then by such a blessed man as Lord
H. or Mr. Otway. _They_ make their tenants happy, they treat them
like Christians, and among _their_ poor people you hear no cant about
emancipation, they have enough to eat and drink, they are encouraged in
their industry, protected in their rights, they enjoy all the freedom
that they require, and as much as is good for them. But, sir, the
_talking_ landlords spend their breath and spare their purses; and the
people, who are not such fools now-a-days as to be caught in springes,
know the difference between saying and doing; they understand the
_decoy ducks_ much better than you seem to suppose. I know a great man,
not a hundred miles off, who is building a house as fine as Solomon's
temple, and he makes long speeches, and shakes hands with every
ragamuffin who can give him a vote; but he is not a whit the better
loved for all that, and why should he? He is a hard landlord, and they
say that he makes his poor tenants pull down their stone walls, and
raise mud cabins for themselves, that they may bring the materials of
their former habitations to help in constructing his palace Ah, sir,
words cost nothing, and a poor man would depend more upon the kindness
that assisted him with a sack of oatmeal, or a warm blanket, than upon
all the talk, empty and flourishing, that takes up the newspapers, and
gives the county gentlemen the pleasure of seeing themselves in print.
When the people had not so much experience as they have at present, it
was easier to deceive them; but you can hardly now 'find an old weazel
(as we say) asleep on his perch;' and the _true_ characters of the
landholders are very well known."
Then said I: "Ned, if you have many such landlords, it is the less to
be lamented that they are so fond of going abroad. The absence of such
men is as good as their presence."
"No, sir, bad as they are, they could not _help_ being of some use if
they stayed at home, and spent their money in their own country. Never
believe any one who tells you that the absentees are not one of poor
Ireland's greatest curses."
"Ned," said I, "while I listen to you, and hear so many sensible
remarks from your lips, I cannot help thinking what a fine thing is
universal education, and how great a change _must_ be effected by
learning which will enable the mass of any nation to reason with the
force which you can bring to meet every subject that we have discussed
to day."
"Sir, I thank you," answered Ned, "for the compliment, but I cannot
return it without telling a lie. _Your_ reasoning, sir, is not of the
best, if you will consider the matter again, when you would say, all
as one, as that books make brains. Why should the knowledge of reading
and writing, and casting sums in arithmetic make wisdom amongst the
poor, any more than amongst the rich; and you have plenty of dunces,
sir, in the higher walks of life, who cannot argue a bit the better
for any thing that they ever got hold of in school, or at college. But
even if learning gave understanding, which it does _not_, for that is
God's gift, still, sir, it might be, with all its worth, not fit for
_us_ in our present condition. If you gave me a barrel of the best
seed corn that your rich country ever grew, I could not say but that
it was a good gift, and the grain fine grain; but if I threw it on the
surface of that barren rock yonder there, what return would it make?
Wouldn't it only bring the mag-pies in flocks about me, to eat not only
that, but what little I had before? First, fence in a bit of ground;
then, burn it, and dig it, and clear it; after that, you may sow your
grain, and it will come up and yield increase. In like manner, sir, if
you gentry would make your tenants more comfortable, give them a little
property in their labours, encourage them to decent habits, reward the
sober and peaceable, punish the bad, live amongst them, and employ
them, you would soon find your soil prepared for sowing a crop which at
present is thrown to waste, or only devoured by birds of prey."
I could have staid till midnight with poor Ned, and Bentley seemed
rivetted in attention to his acute observations and sound common sense;
but Frederick looked at his watch, and gave the signal "to horse."
As we were moving towards the place where our palfreys were in
waiting, I said to Burke, "tell me how is it that the mass of the
people in Ireland speak so much purer English than we do, though it is
_our_ native tongue, and with you _not_ so?"
"That is the very reason of it, sir, I suppose," replied this
extra-ordinary man. "You speak English amongst your poor, as we speak
Irish, by ear, and so we speak it badly enough, and differently in
different places; but _our English_ we learn out of books, because it
is _not_ our natural language, and so perhaps we may speak it nearer
to the manner in which it is written than you do at your side of the
water."
With intelligence thus superior to his humble lot, did this _desert_
"Hampden" (for "_village_" would not suit with his desolate dwelling)
discourse with us till we were mounted. Frederick made him promise to
come to Glenalta, where he told him that a present of books awaited
his arrival: and we promised to visit him again on our return from
Killarney. With affectionate and mutual adieus, we parted, and left the
wide blank of a deathlike solitude and silence, to contrast with the
merry din of our voices and the cheerful shew of life which had been
produced by the group of men, dogs, and horses, on the gloomy heath.